Women in the Law

N.J. Lawyer Ethics Office Settles Bias Suit for $150K

New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a bias suit filed by three women lawyers. The three plaintiffs had claimed the office had a “caste system” that placed women lawyers into lower job classifications than men who had not gone to law school, the…

Jul 29, 2008 12:34 PM CDT

Paychecks Rose to a Median of $108K for 2007 Law Grads in Law Firms

Median pay for 2007 law grads who went into private practice has surpassed the $100,000 mark, but salaries for their counterparts in other legal jobs still pale in comparison. The median annual salary for new law grads in private practice was $108,500, a jump of $13,000 over 2006, according to…

Jul 28, 2008 2:03 PM CDT

Law Firms Should Foster Career Skills, Not Drinking Skills, Expert Says

A career expert has some advice for law firms running summer associate programs: Spend less money on late-night parties and more on training and mentoring programs. Writing for the National Law Journal, Lauren Stiller Rikleen said she has heard too many tales of summer associates who feel pressured to attend…

Jul 24, 2008 5:00 PM CDT

Ropes & Gray Hires E-discovery Counsel

Ropes & Gray has hired its first e-discovery counsel, making it one of a handful of law firms that have a lawyer on board who focuses exclusively on the issue. Shannon Capone Kirk is jumping to Ropes & Gray from Ungaretti & Harris, where she was a partner who chaired…

Jul 23, 2008 5:03 PM CDT

Orrick Partner Says Law Firms Must Change Promotion and Billing Structures

A partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe endorses part-time work options at law firms, but she says it isn’t nearly enough to satisfy the new generation of lawyers. Patricia Gillette, a San Francisco partner in employment law, said law firms need to completely change promotion structures, create multiple paths to…

Jul 18, 2008 3:32 PM CDT

D.C. Lawyer Helped Nab Suspect in Jogger Attacks; Cop Didn’t Pursue Levy Lead

An antitrust lawyer for Arnold & Porter who was attacked by a man as she was jogging in a Washington, D.C., park in 2001 fought off her attacker and helped police find a suspect. But police investigating the disappearance of intern Chandra Levy were slow to recognize a possible lead…

Jul 18, 2008 1:35 PM CDT

How to Make Women Lawyers Partners

A new study being released tomorrow says simple strategies can help law firms help close the gap between the number of women and men who are advancing into partnership ranks. Among them: make it worthwhile financially for senior partners to promote diversity; encourage men to mentor women; and keep a…

Jul 16, 2008 10:11 PM CDT

A Sweet Networking Event for Women Lawyers at Greenberg Traurig

About 60 women lawyers and summer associates from Greenberg Traurig gathered at the Manhattan home of partner Judith O’Neill last night for a chocolate-tasting billed as a networking opportunity. Leading the event was food writer Dina Cheney, who said this isn’t the first time she has held a chocolate-tasting for…

Jul 11, 2008 12:39 PM CDT

RIP: Janet Mary Riley, Crusading Women’s Rights Lawyer

A longtime Loyola University New Orleans School of Law professor who is credited with making Louisiana women equal partners in their marriages died Saturday. Janet Mary Riley was 92. A Loyola law librarian-turned-law student, Riley was Loyola Law’s first female professor, and she took the job in part because she…

Jul 8, 2008 6:10 PM CDT

‘Hot Attorney’ Website is Iced

A “Hot Attorney” website that featured photos and biographical information about attractive young women attorneys at major law firms has been taken down, after it caught the attention of the media, including Above the Law. “Marketed as a kind of ‘hottie hall of fame,’ ” it gathered information from websites…

Jul 8, 2008 3:17 PM CDT

Skadden’s Car Service: Abused Perk or Pretext?

At the heart of an age and sex discrimination case against Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is a onetime litigation counsel’s liberal use of a common law firm perk: the car service. In 2005, Rita W. Gordon was fired allegedly for inappropriately charging clients for personal car service use,…

Jul 8, 2008 12:41 PM CDT

Ex-Partner Sexually Harassed 12, Kasowitz Law Firm Says in Lawsuit

Striking back at a former partner who last month filed a defamation claim over a law firm press release that he had been fired for “extremely inappropriate personal conduct,” Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman filed a lawsuit of its own today in Manhattan Supreme Court. In it, the law firm…

Jul 7, 2008 9:13 PM CDT

July 7, 1981

O’Connor Nominated to High Court

Jul 1, 2008 1:00 PM CDT

Would-Be Partner’s $12M Suit Says Law Firm Discriminates Against Women

A would-be partner’s suit against one of Canada’s top-tier law firms doesn’t just claim that McCarthy Tetrault discriminated against her because of her gender. It contends that the firm systemically discriminates against other women lawyers, too. But the Ontario-based firm, which has already paid Diane LaCalamita about $200,000 in severance,…

Jun 25, 2008 3:00 PM CDT

Lawyers in Love Celebrate Anniversaries at Home—and at Work

Grant and Sandy Liser are celebrating their 19th wedding anniversary this month. But the two Texas lawyers are achieving a memorable milestone as partners at the office this year, too: a decade together at the same law firm, practicing together as trial attorneys in a 21-lawyer defense firm. Although their…

Jun 23, 2008 5:52 PM CDT